The Primary Character Book, designed to provide the teaching of characters’ writing to Chinese beginners, is compiled on the basis of the Primary Textbook. The teachers and students are supposed to use it along with the Primary Textbook. The Character Book is composed of two parts, with the basic knowledge of Chinese characters in the first part and the systematic display of new characters and writing instructions in the second one. In the first part, the general knowledge of pictographic characters and indicative characters is illustrated briefly, as well as the basic rules of stroke-order of characters and the samples of the writing of the characters of different composing structures. The second part, also the main part of the book, is composed of characters’ list and characters’ writing. The characters displayed in the list are chosen from the vocabulary of each lesson of the Primary Textbook abiding by the principle of proceeding from the easy to the difficult. On average there are about 25 to 35 characters in each lesson and the students can learn to write 5 to 7 characters each day from Monday to Friday. The learner can choose to start from the easiest. The character-writing part displays the phonetic spelling and the meaning of the word, as well as the related word and the detailed stroke-order of the character’s writing. When writing the character, the students are supposed to copy the writing of the character stroke by stroke in the blanks on the book, and then trace the character in red five times, then practice writing the whole character independently in the following blanks. This book is used for one school year (about 22 weeks in European and American countries) and by the end of the semester, the students will master the basic rule of characters’ writing and be able to write new characters correctly and independently.
Pictographic Characters’ Samples Indicative Characters’ Samples Associative Characters’ Samples Rules of Stroke-order of Chinese Characters Examples Lesson 1 I You He Lesson 2 Read and Write Lesson 3 I Like Fish and Eggs, Too Lesson 4 I’m a Bookworm Lesson 5 Who Is He Lesson 6 This Is My Younger Brother Lesson 7 There Are Many National Flags Over There Lesson 8 I’ll See You Off at the Airport Lesson 9 You Have a Headache, I Have a Footache Lesson 10 The New House Is in the City Lesson 11 East, West, South, North and the Middle Lesson 12 We’re Singing the Song of Classifiers Lesson 13 Please Tell Me the Classifiers Lesson 14 A Car Is Parking in the Street Lesson 15 I’m Back from the Shopping Lesson 16 Have You Ever Visited the Great Wall Lesson 17 I’m Too Slow to Catch You Lesson 18 Come Back, Go Back, Come Out, Go Out Lesson 19 Shanghai and Sydney Lesson 20 Close the Door and Open the Window Lesson 21 Strong Wind and Heavy Rain Lesson 22 Do Not Play a Joke on Me
